


Baptism

by HannahLydia



Series: Constants and Variables - Vignettes [2]
Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Canon Rewrite, Character Death, Drowning, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Infinite Pre-Burial at Sea, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 05:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15965807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HannahLydia/pseuds/HannahLydia
Summary: Just like that he was gone, and he took all of their fleeting moments of snatched happiness with him...AKA: An insight into Elizabeth's pain after Booker is drowned. Rewrite/expanding on canon.





	Baptism

Elizabeth was distantly aware that she couldn’t move her arms. It was as though some other force had taken hold of her now - as though lead deposits had been tied to her slender wrists and were dragging them down into the depths and holding them there. She couldn’t move, even if she wanted to.  
She felt no resistance beneath her grip aside from the instinctive death throes of a body fighting for its last, but the face looking up at her _knew_. He’d relented.   
While her own face was a mask, devoid of all emotion, the same could not be said for her mind. Inside she was screaming at the top of her lungs and the tears that refused to flow freely down her cheeks were running like acid through her blood. 

 _W-What are you doing? Stop! Let him up!!_ A panicked voice shrieked in her mind. Hers.   
_**I can’t.**_ Another replied coldly. Again, hers.   
_No! Don’t– don’t let it end this way-! Not him!_ Please! I’m begging you!  _Not like this!  
**It can** only **end this way. Because this is the only way He can begin.**_

That had been the choice, after all. The trade. They’d made this decision together without words. Here at this crossroads - where it began and where it would _always_ begin - one life would end now as payment for the extinction of many, many lives.   
  
**_An end for all Comstocks…_**

But it wasn’t just an end for Booker. It was the end, as she knew it, for her. She could feel it as plainly as she could feel the final breaths ebbing from his body… see it as clearly as she saw his eyes glaze over with the unseeing fog of death. Just like that he was gone, and he took all of their fleeting moments of snatched happiness with him.   
The weight on Elizabeth’s arms subsided. She pulled them up out of the water but instead of pulling Booker up with her, her numb fingers let him go.   
Breathing tightly and staring down into the water without truly seeing, she bowed her head and waited for what felt like an age before the tears finally came. When they did, they fell fast and heavy, carving hot salty tracks down her cheeks. She made no attempt to prevent them from falling. After a further moment’s silence, the fitful sobs began.   
Why was she crying? She could see Doors, _millions_ of Doors, all full of possibilities that were simply gleaming with hope. It had _worked_. She could see into worlds that had been opened up to her - to every version of her - and to Booker too. But…  
  
_But not_ my _Booker. And not for_ me. _For… ‘Anna’._

The thought had been tinged with a bitterness she had not expected to come from her, not when she had so frankly believed that this path was just.   
Shaking her head, she tried to swallow the lump caught in her throat.   
_I– I can’t leave him,_ she thought helplessly, the notion rising from the pit of her stomach to the top of her skull, shooting daggers in its wake. Every inch of her slight, trembling frame _ached_. 

Blinded by tears, Elizabeth plunged her hands back into the water, feeling desperately for skin, hair, cloth– something, _anything_ , to grab hold of. She latched onto what felt like Booker’s waistcoat, and _pulled_. It felt almost as though the river parted for her, relinquishing him from his grave, but the face that rose from the water wasn’t the one she knew. It occurred to her that she should have half-expected to see a face aged and greyed, one she could hate, one she could hiss at and say, _**yes, I did the right thing** , _but, no. No, this was the same tired yet handsome face that had plunged into the water… only with all the life drained out. That simple yet vital spark– gone. There was nothing left there that she recognised.  
Something forced Elizabeth to look back down into the water. There was another form there now, where Booker had been lying only seconds before, drifting in the shadow of where he was hanging limply in her grasp. She realised grimly that it was another body - one that she had no intention of pulling from the depths, one that appeared to have been shed from Booker like an old, bad skin. The silhouette disintegrated before her very eyes, ashes washed away by the baptismal water downstream. And in defeating Him, she had sacrificed the one thing she had treasured above everything. Even above her own freedom. 

The task at hand was considerable. Elizabeth was only small - she’d have struggled to move Booker before, but now he was (quite literally) a dead weight, and soaked from head to toe. A surge of adrenaline helped her drag him from the water to the bank that rose up to a slight incline. Somehow, with great effort, she managed to settle him down on the grassy mound beside the river. Then, with trembling hands, she gently lowered his eyelids over his empty, unseeing eyes and smoothed his wet hair back from his forehead. Her sobs had quietened somewhat, but her body heaved with panting nonetheless.   
It wasn’t _fair_. How dare he look so peaceful? She had taken everything from him, he wasn’t supposed to look so– so _rested_. The one thing he was supposed to leave her with was a lesson - the truth that killing - that death - was never easy. That some debts, no matter how costly, had to be paid. She should be burning the image of this sacrifice in her mind so she could hate herself for it, so she could use it to form a layer over her heart in the hopes it would calcify. Not this. This wasn’t what she wanted!   
“Come back to me…” she babbled uselessly, patting the damp lapels on his waistcoat. Her voice was so thick that her words were barely tangible, tear-ridden and strained. “N-Not now…. I– I know you can’t. But… But one day? _Please_. You promised me, Booker. Paris, remember? You… You promised you’d take me to Paris,”  
The tears were rolling faster now, and her movements were becoming increasingly agitated. Oh, but she needed to get it out of her system. The last shred of her childish naivety and innocence was flowing out of her with her mourning tears, and she knew that if she didn’t stop then she would lose every last familiar part of her; that the girl she had been would leave and go wherever he had gone. But she couldn’t stop. This was her punishment for choosing to take a stand and break the cycle. Revolution wasn’t free, and neither was messing with the universe.   
Before she could dare doubt, she saw vividly in her mind’s eye the extinction of every Comstock in the future possibility space, one after another. One for every tear she shed. The relief was nothing compared to the pain. 

Booker had given her everything a man could possibly hope to give. There was no way anyone would be able to reach the pedestal she’d put him on. 


End file.
